Broken
by katyana
Summary: Anamaria isn't there on the quest for the Dead Man's Chest. What happened to her? Features unrequited AnaJack and a hint of JWE


Something Anamaria learned very early on in life, was that it was next to impossible to have sex in a hammock. The dratted things would rock and sway so much that as soon as you tried to fit more than one occupant in it, they tipped up – leaving two embarrassed lovers upturned on the floor of the crew's quarters.

Far easier, she had discovered, was to find a discreet corner amongst the cargo and the supplies, in the hold. True, it was a little dingy and with all that flammable pitch and wood, you couldn't risk a lamp - but who ever needed light to fuck? It was quiet, warm and (mostly) dry. And the chance that someone would walk in on you was much smaller than anywhere else. Still there, of course; but that just added to the excitement of it all.

Not that anyone would care if she _were _sleeping with any of the crew, she thought rather bitterly, or anyone else for that matter. They're all too wrapped up in their own affairs.

Of course, by 'anyone', she meant Captain Jack Sparrow, and by 'own affairs', she meant Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan.

Anamaria had been in love with Jack Sparrow for some years now.

Admittedly, it was rather against her will; she didn't think she'd ever met a more infuriating, self serving _leech_ of a man in her life. But he got under your skin, like a splinter so tiny that you barely notice it at first, but which festers away until, one day, you can no longer ignore it.

Of course, her mother had always told her to leave splinters, that they would eventually go away. Not this one.

Luckily for her, nobody had ever noticed quite how deep her feelings for the Captain ran – and even if they had, she would never have owned that they were true. The only person who had come even close had been Will Turner; naïve, innocent Will Turner, yet he'd seen through her right from the start. There had been pity, and a sort of absolution in his eyes when he had announced that Jack had been left behind. And, God forgive her, Anamaria had been all to eager to let it be true, wanting to gain control of her own life again.

Because Jack made her feel helpless, feminine. She didn't show it, oh no, but it was there all the same. He made her feel lost in a way that she hadn't felt since her mother died. Ironically, that was when she first met him.

Her mother, like most of the women on Tortuga, had been a whore. A syphilitic whore with such poor knowledge of how to prevent childbirth that Anamaria, and then later, her younger brother, had been the result. She'd died when Anamaria was fourteen, and Jacob twelve, leaving the pair of them with the knowledge that whoever their da was (although the chances of them sharing a father were minute, she only ever referred to one man), he was definitely a pirate, and precious little else.

The whorehouse they had lived in with their mother took barely a week to throw them out, declaring that there was no way they were getting free bed and board, even if their ma had been one of their best. Jacob, showing a callousness she had not thought him capable of, had come back that same afternoon declaring that he had a berth as cabin boy on one of the pirate crews docked at the port.

Which left Anamaria alone, penniless and with no way of earning a living. Bar one. Whoring, she had reasoned, was in her blood. She had no right to look down upon a perfectly – well, if not respectable, then _lucrative_ way of living. And really, she had little choice.

So, a week after her mother's death, and almost as long since her last meal, Anamaria found herself at the far end of the docks, hoping desperately that she'd find a customer and be able to eat that night. It was a slim chance; few of the drunken men on shore leave ever made it this far along the dock, but it had been the first place that wasn't already occupied by the more seasoned ladies of pleasure.

And that was how she met Jack; her, still a timid, uncertain fourteen year old, and him, a swaggering, cocksure young man of twenty-something. He had sashayed along the dock as if he owned the place, although he seemed to be trying to avoid one of the women nearer to the boats. That memory always makes her smile; after all, not much has changed. Jack still behaves as if he cannot understand why people wouldn't know who he is – the only difference is that more people actually do, and consequentially there are more people for him to avoid.

He'd staggered up to her, bottle in hand and rum sloshing all over the place. Nervous though she was, she'd always been determined, and she'd waltzed up to him, hand on hip, bold as brass – hiding her fear.

She'd been lucky; she hadn't realised exactly how lucky at the time, but she did now. She'd seen so much since then, horrors she could never have imagined as a child, and some of the worst were those injuries – some visible, some not – that men inflicted on women. The fact that her first customer had been Jack, and not some twisted old pirate who got kicks out of violence and murder, had been providence. Provident, but also cruel. He had taken her to a room in one of the inns and bedded her whilst graciously making no comment on her inexperience. Then he had talked to her, and _listened_, listened as though he cared. He had pointed out to her that if whoring was in her blood, then so was piracy. And that there was far more to gain by being a pirate.

She had fallen in love with him then, with his tales of freedom and riches, of the open sea under your feet and the wind in your hair. They had talked, and fucked, and talked, until she fell asleep. When she had woken the next morning, he had gone. It wasn't until several days later that she had realised that he had never paid her for her night's work. The cynical part of her insisted that his apparent understanding had all been a ruse for a cheap fuck, but mostly she didn't begrudge him it. After all, he had introduced her to her second love – the sea.

And now she had realised that her second best desire was all she could ever hope to attain. The way he looked at Elizabeth – aye, and Turner too, when he thought no one was watching… She could not hope to compete with that. She had jumped ship at the first port they had put into after the Port Royal debacle. She threw herself into her work like never before, and quickly worked her way up to second mate on the _Esperanza. _Not wanting to risk her fierce reputation, she quashed all rumours about her mooning over Jack, attempted to make it clear that she had left because she still didn't have her boat back.

She wasn't sure if it had worked. Didn't care really. Let them say what they liked; truth was, she was broken without him. And there was no hope of her ever being fixed.


End file.
